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MST3K 618 - High School Big Shot
The Short Out of this World Synopsis A tale of the never ending battle between good and evil, heaven and hell, as the battle moves to Earth for ultimate domination of bread delivery truck drivers. Information *This short was included on Shorts Vol 3, released by Rhino Entertainment on VHS in Janurary 2001, and on DVD in August 2004 as an limited time exclusive bonus for ordering MST3K: The Essentials from a specially created Rhino site. The Movie Synopsis It's 1959 somewhere in America. Friendless, penniless, motherless, sad-sack, 26-year-old high school student and "Shakespeare queen" Marv Grant (the late Tom Pittman, who died in a car crash shortly after this film was made) has nebulous dreams of improving his dismal life by escaping to college. His English teacher, Mr. Carter (Peter Leeds, who was also in MST's "Girls Town") is an ally who is working on getting him a scholarship because Marv has memorized "Hamlet". Marv's father is a sporadically employed, dipsomaniacal widower and boat anchor (Malcolm Atterbury, who was also in MST's "I Was a Teenage Werewolf"). He dreams of keeping away from the booze, landing a steady job, moving out of the dump he and Marv share, sending his son off to college and getting re-married. He dreams this, that is, when he is not destroying Marv's ego with thoughtless comments. Marv is easily duped into forging a term paper for the "prettiest girl in school", the bosomy, conniving Betty Alexander (Virgina Aldridge). Tragically naive to the perils of romance, after one gloomy date he becomes infatuated with her appearance and the fantasy of idyllic lifelong union with her. When he pops the question, she tells him it's "no dice" unless he can satisfy her monetary demands. See, she's on combative terms with her father, and with sufficient wealth at her command, she feels she can "spit in his face" - figuratively, perhaps. At his shipping clerk job down at the wharf, Marv discovers via eavesdropping that a drug-linked shipment of a million dollars (that was a lot of money back then) will soon be temporarily stored in a safe on the premises. He concocts a scheme to snatch it, enlisting the aid of two experienced, non-threatening sometime criminals, amiable safe cracker Stanley Adams and suspicious liquor store proprietor Louis Quinn. Marv breathlessly assures Betty he will soon have the money she craves and also divulges to her how he plans to get it. She immediately tells all to her main squeeze, the pea-brained, fully whipped, Michael-J-Pollard-ish bully/petty thug Vince (Howard Veit). She presses him into her plan of snatching the money from Marv and helpfully furnishes him with a handgun. Vince resists, having only stolen hubcaps up in the way of crime to this point. Things fall apart. At school, Marv's cheating is brutally revealed. It appears his chances of a scholarship are ruined. Marv's dad proposes to a woman he's been seeing and is snubbed. He then loses out on the promise of a job. Utterly defeated, he hints to Marv at a dark possibility. What else, one wonders, could possibly go wrong? Who will wind up with the million dollars and the beautiful girl - Marv, Vince, or neither one? Will sociopathic siren Betty pay the price for her pitiless plotting? Information The Episode Host Segments Prologue: Mike has a major headache. Crow has to practice his cymbals, Tom finds a bagpipe, and Gypsy really likes Seinfeld. These things don't go together. Segment One: Mike turns to a drill to relieve the pressure. Dr. Forrester gives Frank and the SOL crew chemistry sets to do the work for him. Frank clones a dinosaur using his chemistry set. Alas, it does not like Dr. F. Crow mixes a potion that makes Tom Servo huge! Segment Two: Mike, Crow, and Tom present their specialty breads, such as a bread with a shampoo and conditioner built in, or a butter-top bread with bars of real butter stuck into it. Segment Three: Crow and Tom egg Mike. With an omelet. And the hollandaise is too lemony. Segment Four: Crow and Tom try and fail to break into Gypsy’s diary using dynamite and more dynamite. Segment Five:'''Mike reads a letter until the Bots reenact the tragic end of the movie with water pistols. Dr. F gives the little dinosaur something to chew on, and it's in Frank's pants. '''Stinger: "A million bucks!" Obscure References * "Say I'm starring in 'Forever Plaid'!" Forever Plaid is an off-Broadway musical about a 1950s pop music group. * "I just saw Howard Hughes in the desert!" A reference to Melvin Dummar, a Utah gas-station owner who claimed to have picked up reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes as a hitchhiker in the Nevada desert. * "This is Charles Kuralt. We're gonna leave you now with images of bread!" Servo is mocking the late Charles Kuralt's sign-offs on CBS News Sunday Morning. * "Hey, Dr. Giggles!" Dr. Giggles was a 1992 horror movie. * "Uh...that's Christine Jorgensen!" In the early 1950s, Christine Jorgensen became famous as one of the first people to undergo a sex-change operation. * "Niels Bohr buys groceries." Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist. * How's the German expressionist date going? German expressionism was a dark and moody school of film-making developed in German in the 1920's. * "Terry Malloy!" Terry Malloy is the name of the main character in Elia Kazan's 1954 classic film "On the Waterfront". * She committed thought crimes! Put the rat mask on her! A reference to the crimes and torture of Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984. *''"Dad's turned into Gregor Samsa."'' Gregor Samsa is the character in Franz Kafka's novel "The Metamorphosis" who changes into a giant cockroach. Category:MST3K Episodes Category:Season 6 Category:Episodes with shorts Category:Teen Exploitation